Every game is important, of course. But, so far, in conference, we may have played the two weakest teams. Over the next 12 games, however, we’ll play arguably the three best teams in the conference (other than us) plus three out-of-conference teams with solid winning percentages. And those winning percentages is what really helps our RPI.
Between Houston, USM, ECU, So Alabama, UCF, and UNO they have a .626 winning percentage as of today. Our previous opponents have a combined winning percentage of .545, better than average but not good enough to raise our SOS above #80. The next 12 games should raise us up considerably in that statistic. The key is winning a good proportion of those games because our final ten games of the season are against teams with a winning percentage of .451. Combined our remaining games are against teams that have virtually the same winning percentage as those we’ve already played- .549 to .545.
Since opponents winning percentage accounts for 2/3 of SOS and half of our RPI, those numbers are important in that, barring major changes in how they play against teams other than us, our SOS is unlikely to change much. To get to an overall RPI of 45 or better, we must win at a better rate than we have. If we could win 8 of the next 12 and 8 of our final 10, I think those 16 wins (39 total) would get us into the low 40’s RPI wise though Boyd’s World says we need to win 17 of our remaining games to reach the top 45 . Regardless, winning fewer than that will put us “on the bubble” or out of contention, with only the conference tournament left as our final hope.
Thursday against Houston will begin the stretch of games that will likely determine how we end up for the season, even if we can dominate our final 10 games.
Roll Wave!!!
Between Houston, USM, ECU, So Alabama, UCF, and UNO they have a .626 winning percentage as of today. Our previous opponents have a combined winning percentage of .545, better than average but not good enough to raise our SOS above #80. The next 12 games should raise us up considerably in that statistic. The key is winning a good proportion of those games because our final ten games of the season are against teams with a winning percentage of .451. Combined our remaining games are against teams that have virtually the same winning percentage as those we’ve already played- .549 to .545.
Since opponents winning percentage accounts for 2/3 of SOS and half of our RPI, those numbers are important in that, barring major changes in how they play against teams other than us, our SOS is unlikely to change much. To get to an overall RPI of 45 or better, we must win at a better rate than we have. If we could win 8 of the next 12 and 8 of our final 10, I think those 16 wins (39 total) would get us into the low 40’s RPI wise though Boyd’s World says we need to win 17 of our remaining games to reach the top 45 . Regardless, winning fewer than that will put us “on the bubble” or out of contention, with only the conference tournament left as our final hope.
Thursday against Houston will begin the stretch of games that will likely determine how we end up for the season, even if we can dominate our final 10 games.
Roll Wave!!!
